sábado, 28 de febrero de 2015

A new study proves just how invasive Monsanto’s best selling
chemicals are, revealing how herbicide toxins are appearing in 75% of
rain and air samples.

Take a deep breath. Thanks to the massive use of herbicides across
the planet, you likely just inhaled a dose of Monsanto’s best-selling
herbicide, Round Up – at least according to the latest US Geological
Survey published in the journalEnviromental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The chemical ingredient used in Round Up, known as glyphosate, as well as other ‘inert’ toxic chemicals, were found
in over 75% of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007
– a large river that cuts through the middle of the US, and is the
basin in which hundreds of farms’ runoff drains.

February 26, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LocalOrg) - When money and
power are involved, those standing to gain the most will say and do
anything to push their agenda forward. Five centuries ago, saying and
doing anything involved exploiting people's superstitions and their
faith in religion. Today, saying and doing anything means also
exploiting science.

Science, engineering, and design are amongst our most practical and
effective tools to make real and meaningful change. But because they are
so powerful and appealing, the potential for their abuse in the wrong
hands is immense. Compounding this is the naivety of those who are
fascinated by science's promise but blind to its potential abuse.

Editor’s note:
Below you will find an interview with Debbie Bookchin, daughter of the
late Murray Bookchin, who passed away in 2006. Bookchin spent his life
in revolutionary leftist circles, joining a communist youth organization
at the age of nine and becoming a Trotskyist in his late thirties,
before switching to anarchist thought and finally ending up identifying
himself as a ‘communalist’ after developing the ideas of ‘libertarian
municipalism’.

An interview with Debbie
Bookchin on her father’s contributions to revolutionary theory and the
adoption of his ideas by the Kurdish liberation movement.

viernes, 27 de febrero de 2015

OK, so by this afternoon, the exchange rate of death in two days was 40-0 in favour of Israel. But now for the Gaza story you won’t be hearing from anyone else in the next few hours.

It’s about land. The Israelis of Sederot are coming under rocket fire from the Palestinians of Gaza and now the Palestinians are getting their comeuppance. Sure. But wait, how come all those Palestinians – all 1.5 million – are crammed into Gaza in the first place? Well, their families once lived, didn’t they, in what is now called Israel? And got chucked out – or fled for their lives – when the Israeli state was created.

Family members have called for justice after the outing of murderous extremist Jihadi John as Mohammed Emwazi, as medics who knew him in Syria described him as one of the terror group's top fighters.

Jihadi John rose to notoriety after he first appeared in a video posted online last August, in which he appeared to kill the American journalist James Foley, and he reappeared in videos of the beheadings of US journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, and American aid worker Peter Kassig. Last month, the militant appeared in a video with the Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, shortly before they were killed.

Bethany Haines, daughter of his first British victim David Haines, said she would feel closure only "once there's a bullet between his (Emwazi's) eyes".

There is considerable ambiguity over whether the Federal Reserve is a
government agency, a private institution, or something in between. The
Fed itself says:

The Federal Reserve System fulfills its public mission as an
independent entity within government. It is not "owned" by anyone and
is not a private, profit-making institution.

As the nation's central bank, the Federal Reserve derives its
authority from the Congress of the United States. It is considered an
independent central bank because its monetary policy decisions do not
have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or
legislative branches of government, it does not receive funding
appropriated by the Congress, and the terms of the members of the Board
of Governors span multiple presidential and congressional terms.

However, the Federal Reserve is subject to oversight by the
Congress, which often reviews the Federal Reserve's activities and can
alter its responsibilities by statute. Therefore, the Federal Reserve
can be more accurately described as "independent within the government"
rather than "independent of government."

Human Rights in Ireland welcomes this guest post from John O’Shea.
John holds a law degree, BCL from NUIG, an MA in Public Advocacy and an
LLM in International Human Rights law from the Irish Centre for Human
Rights, (NUIG). He has recently returned from Colombia where he worked
with Trade Unionists, and the Guardianes del Agua in the Northern
Highlands of Peru.

Disturbing phenomenon of bride kidnapping and high rate of domestic
violence; measures to uphold rights of women living in rural areas;
highly segregated labour market; maternal and infant healthcare;
negative gender stereotypes, trafficking in persons; women in
decision-making positions in politics, academia and public life in
general were among the issues discussed when the UN Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women reviewed Kyrgyzstan’s
report: sm.ohchr.org/1LQ1fsE

It has been said that it is no measure of health to be well adjusted in a profoundly sick society. And there is no way you can be awake and deny that we live in a profoundly sick society. So, are you well adjusted? Listen, if you live in the United States or the UK or in one of the countries where the ruling class benefits from the dominant system of global corporate capitalism, your government is either committing or enabling crimes against humanity that include, but are in no way limited to war crimes, illegal surveillance, illegal occupations, and covert government coups. THESE ARE FACTS, not hyperbole.

War on Whistleblowers highlights recent cases where American government employees and contractors took to the media to expose fraud and abuse. In all cases the whistle-blowing was to the detriment of their professional and personal lives.

The FBI and major media outlets yesterday trumpeted the agency’s latest counterterrorism triumph: the arrest of three Brooklyn men, ages 19 to 30, on charges of conspiring to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS (photo of joint FBI/NYPD press conference, above). As my colleague Murtaza Hussain ably documents, “it appears that none of the three men was in any condition to travel or support the Islamic State, without help from the FBI informant.” One of the frightening terrorist villains told the FBI informant that, beyond having no money, he had encountered a significant problem in following through on the FBI’s plot: his mom had taken away his passport. Noting the bizarre and unhinged ranting of one of the suspects, Hussain noted on Twitter that this case “sounds like another victory for the FBI over the mentally ill.”

A two-minute mash up of all the snubs, insults, humiliations, slaps in
the face, etc. that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
inflicted on the United States and why Members of Congress should
#SkipTheSpeech. Take action here: http://bit.ly/1zV2sMq - private

"From fire and sword to arsenic and bullets – civilisation has sent six million Indians to extinction."

Norman Lewis' article "Genocide" caused an international outcry and led
to the founding of Survival International 46 years ago. Help us end the
annihilation of tribal peoples: www.survivalinternational.org/donate

Tsipras' pro-euro strategy has failed. The Eurozone will never tolerate a
socially progressive alternative in its midst — not even a moderately
Keynesian one. If the left truly cares about ending austerity, it should
start preparing for Plan B: Grexit.

Syriza’s “head-long retreat” in
the standoff with its creditors hails the failure of Tsipras’ pro-euro
strategy. It’s time to start preparing for Grexit.

Iraqi Kurdish forces have confined thousands of Arabs in “security zones” in areas of northern Iraq that they have captured since August 2014 from the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Kurdish forces for months barred Arabs displaced by fighting from returning to their homes in portions of Ninewa and Erbil provinces, while permitting Kurds to return to those areas and even to move into homes of Arabs who fled. Some restrictions were eased in January 2015, after Human Rights Watch communicated with the Kurdish regional government about the issue, but others remain.

Military
vehicles pass as Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK) fighters man a checkpoint north of Mount Sinjar,
Iraq on December 20, 2014.

Climate change in Africa

Climate scientists have been meeting
in Nairobi this week to present the findings of the IPCC's 5th
Assessment report. While Africa is not a major emitter of greenhouse
gases, it is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change. DW
talks to Youba Sokona, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III, tasked with
assessing all relevant options for mitigating climate change.

Happy 50th birthday to us! We're celebrating with a new name, new
colors, and a renewed commitment to our mission to meet the
contraceptive needs of women around the world. Check out the new PAI at www.pai.org

That the US is arming and training Syrian rebels has been well-documented for over two years,
yet Western media have historically suffered from a strange collective
amnesia when reporting this fact. As Ian Sinclair noted last September
in the Huffington Post (9/23/14):

Freedom Rider: Media Silence on Libya

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“They used the dubious doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, R2P, as a means of getting away with murder.”

Despite the all-encompassing belief in democracy and a free press,
Americans have very little democracy left and perhaps the worst media in
the world. Even people who make efforts to be informed don’t know what
is happening domestically and internationally because of the constant
lies and disinformation they are exposed to by the corporate media. They
act as spokespersons for the powerful instead of providing analysis and
information for readers and viewers. The result is a world turned
upside down, with lies being sold as the truth. Libya is just the latest
example of press malfeasance.

(venezuelanalysis.com)
Venezuelan opposition Mayor and longtime rightwing politician, Antonio
Ledezma, has been arrested by the country’s intelligence services,
SEBIN, for his alleged role in plotting to stage a coup against the
democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro.

The planned coup was uncovered last week
by security forces, just hours before several US backed Air Force
officials had planned to partake in a bombing spree of strategic targets
in the capital. They had hoped this would lead to the assassination of
the country’s president and bring about regime change in the South
American country.

jueves, 26 de febrero de 2015

Since 1945, more than a third of the membership of the United Nations -
69 countries - have suffered some or all of the following at the hands
of America's modern fascism. They have been invaded, their governments
overthrown, their popular movements suppressed, their elections
subverted, their people bombed and their economies stripped of all
protection, their societies subjected to a crippling siege known as
"sanctions". The British historian Mark Curtis estimates the death toll
in the millions. In every case, a big lie was deployed...

‘Please help me find who killed my son,’ Ayse Kazanhan sobbed,
sitting on the brightly carpeted living room floor, shaking back
and forth.

‘My son didn’t do anything. I can’t understand why they did this. He was a very special boy.’

Last month, 12-year-old Nihat Kazanhan was fatally shot by unknown
gunmen in the predominantly Kurdish city of Cizre, in southeastern
Turkey, near the Iraqi border.

He was one of at least six people – mostly youths – who have been shot dead since late December last year.

His death was the latest in a string of tragedies which threaten to
undermine the fragile peace process between the Turkish state and the
Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), the Turkish-Kurdish guerrilla group designated as a terrorist organization by the US and European Union because of its three-decade insurgency for self-rule.

With media attention focused on the
fighting in Kobane, ethnic tensions are rising in Cizre, in southeast
Turkey near the Syrian border and Kurds there are facing renewed
violence.
Jordi Bernabeu Farrús under a Creative Commons Licence

Ongoing and widening inequality between rich nations and poor, conflicts
often fuelled by competing outside interests and continuing colonialist
policies coupled with capricious capitalism drive many people to
attempt perilous journeys to gain access to Europe. With more than
27,000 people dying en route since 2000 alone, these treacherous routes
are becoming more dangerous as border crossings are fortified and
funding for search and rescue operations dry up. This VICE News
documentary takes an in-depth looking at some of the main routes into
Europe, talking to those who risk all to get in, and those trying to
stop them.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are cashed strapped this winter
because Israel is withholding $240 million in tax revenue to the
Palestinian Authority as punishment for joining the ICC. This is
radical, though it’s not unusual and something we’ve come to expect. But
turning off the electricity in the middle of winter as blizzards sweep across the Middle East is nothing short of sadistic. The Los Angeles Times reports
Israel cut the power to more than 700,000 Palestinians in two of
Palestine’s largest urban areas, Nablus and Jenin, for more than 45
minutes “and warned that more outages are coming if Palestinian
officials don’t pay millions of dollars in outstanding debt.”

Citing Yiftah Ron-Tal, the director of Israel Electric Corp. (IEC), the Times reports:

“Customers who do not pay electric bills are
disconnected; yet here we have an entire population that doesn’t pay
while we continue to supply electricity,” he said. “The Palestinian
Authority owes the IEC — meaning the paying consumers — nearly 2 billion
Israeli shekels [about $500 million]. A year has passed since I said
this last and nothing has changed. Starting today, we will begin
restricting electricity.”

Welcome to a tourist video with a twist. Street
artist Banksy goes to Gaza; entering via a tunnel, he documents the
destruction wrought by operation protective edge. The short film
features several new pieces, including a kitten playing with a ball made
from wires and other materials littering bombed Gaza streets. On his website he wrote:

A
local man came up and said 'Please — what does this mean?' I explained I
wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my
website — but on the Internet people only look at pictures of kittens."

During the recent measles outbreak, the mainstream media blamed the epidemic solely on non vaccinated children, even though people who were vaccinated caught the disease and some vaccines have proven to be inefficient in the past. Without the slightest nuance, the mainstream media constantly portrays people reluctant to accept just any vaccine as “anti-vaxers”, irresponsible and misinformed people, relying on irrational fears and the one and only “fraudulent” Andrew Wakefield study linking autism to vaccines. (Watch Lina B. Moreco’s documentary Shots in the Dark, which features Dr. Wakefield and thankful parents of his young patients with autism.)

In reality, many so-called “anti-vaxers” are not ALL totally against vaccines. While some people may be totally against any kind of vaccination, many, including doctors and health specialists, question certain vaccines, ingredients in the vaccines and/or the vaccination schedule. This is not based on a survey but on my own perception resulting from the fair amount of articles on vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry that I’ve read over the last five years as a journalist. There are a large number of doctors and health specialists who have done truly independent research and who criticize vaccination based on scientific studies and solid evidence.

A Bread for the World (BFTW) analysis just released points out that the food deficits among African Americans are reaching crisis proportions.

In this report based on United States Government and Pew Research Center data, the social conditions related to the ability to purchase food and other essential services is decreasing.

The oppressed nation of over 42 million African Americans has the highest disproportionate rates of poverty, unemployment and mass incarceration. This is taking place even though the Great Recession officially ended over four years ago.

“As African-Americans, we still suffer from some of the highest rates of hunger and poverty in the country despite the growth of our country’s economy since 2008,” says Eric Mitchell, who is the director of government relations at Bread for the World. “The lack of jobs that pay fair wages is preventing people of color from moving out of poverty and the recession.” (PR newswire, Feb. 20)

Turkey has now officially proven that Israel and the United States are
not the only nations that can brazenly violate the sovereignty of other
countries, Syria in particular, without fear of reprisal due to NATO
support and a blatant culture of aggression.

The Turkish invasion of Syrian soil on February 22 under the guise of
protecting and securing the tomb of Sulayman Shah is case in point.

The tomb is largely recognized as a Turkish exclave since the early
1920s when, in 1921, it was agreed in the Treaty of Ankara that the
Turks would be allowed to raise the Turkish flag over the tomb and place
a small number of Turkish guards around the mausoleum given that
Sulayman Shah bears such significance to Turkish history. The tomb is
located about 23 miles from Turkey itself and thus is located inside
Syrian territory.

According to mainstream Western press like CNN,
the Turks were forced to evacuate the tomb and its contents due to the
escalating violence in the area. CNN also reports that the evacuation
was led and conducted with the 40 guards stationed around the tomb.

However, the reality is that the tomb evacuation was actually a
relatively large military operation involving about 600 Turkish
soldiers, 100 tanks, and APCs.

The settlement security coordinator told us what is allowed and what isn’t

I
did settlement security detail during basic training at Avigail Farm.
Bottom line, it’s really nice. All of a sudden you don’t have commanders
beating you over the head, you live with six other guys, it’s really
like a farm there, a commune. There’s a really pretty view. I got into
arguments with the settlers, I’d always talk with them.

It has been 20 years since the Goldstein Massacre, and settler violence in Hebron has not stopped.

"We had the feeling that we were protecting the Arabs from the Jews."

The Goldstein Massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs serves as the
climax of a long history of settler violence. Jewish terrorism is hardly
a marginal phenomenon when one looks at its impact: graffiti, physical
violence, harassment and abuse,
destruction of property, violent takeover of land. In all these cases,
soldiers are witnesses - including us and countless like us - but have
their hands tied. The legal system in the Occupied Territories operates
differently than in Israel proper. It enables settlers to act with the
knowledge that they can, to quote a soldier's testimony, "stretch the
law, the law will bend according to what we do."https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=713489318673314

We know Zleikha Muhtaseb from our tours to Hebron, She lives in a caged
home on the "sterile" Shuhada street. Zleikha is a kindergarten teacher
and an activist in the Youth Against Settlements organization:

"When people ask me, 'How can you continue living like a prisoner in
your home?', my answer is simple: I live here because it is my home, my
street and my city. The settlers want us to leave, but we will remain
and fight for our right to live freely in our home." Read her article in +972 Magazine about life under occupation in Hebron and how the Goldstein massacre changed the face of the city.

Shuhada
Street in the Old City of Hebron, empty of all Palestinian vehicle and
pedestrian traffic, November 13, 2013. Shuhada Street was the main
commercial center of the city when it was first closed in 1994 to
Palestinian traffic after the Ibrahimi Mosque Massacre, and later to
pedestrians as the army shut down the entire commercial area. (Photo:
Keren Manor/Activestills.org)

by Danny Haiphong

Neoliberalism is “the ideology of corporate domination and the
plunder of finance capital.” To preserve itself domestically, the modern
system has created both the Mass Black Incarceration State and the
National Security State. Internationally, “terrorism, ‘humanitarian
intervention,’ and economic sabotage are the primary means of
maintaining US hegemony of the neo-liberal variety.”

This century’s defining battle could be won or lost without a shot fired. As President Barack Obama’s National Security Strategy
makes clear, the rules-based system we have led since World War II is
competing against alternative, more mercantilist models. Unlike past
challenges to American leadership, this competition is primarily
economic in nature, and victory hinges more on opening markets and
raising standards than on building bombs and raising armies.

To be sure, the traditional link between economics and strategy
hasn’t been upended as much as extended. Beginning with the first
estimates of national income, which were developed in 17th century
Europe to compare the ability of states to raise and support militaries,
economic power has been viewed primarily as an enabler for military
power. This basic belief was widely adopted and held sway among most
strategists through the Cold War.

This article first published in March 2014 at the very outset of
the Ukraine crisis explains the nature of the Kiev proxy regime. we are
dealing with a Neo-Nazi government supported by “Western democracy” and
the “international community”.

U.S. President Barack Obama apparently is going ahead with his plan
for NATO missiles to be placed in Ukraine aimed against Moscow, but
found a way to do it that won’t violate the warnings by Russia’s
President Vladimir Putin against Washington’s directly supplying those
arms to Ukraine (such as is demanded of Obama by congressional
Republicans, and even by a few hawkish Democrats — all passionate
supporters of Hillary Clinton). Obama’s subordinate (or dependent local
leader), the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, is now arranging to
receive those weapons via a less direct channel; and this arrangement
couldn’t happen if the U.S. White House were opposed to it. The idea
might even have originated inside the White House.

This year is pivotal for global action on climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today in New York, emphasising that all the major advances of 2014 have set the stage for success in 2015.

"Our challenge now is clear: to finalize a meaningful, universal agreement on climate change," Mr. Ban told Member States at a briefing on relevant progress as momentum builds towards a meeting to be held in Paris this December, when leaders are expected to reach a landmark treaty.

"Addressing climate change is essential for realizing sustainable development. If we fail to adequately address climate change, we will be unable to build a world that supports a life of dignity for all," the Secretary-General warned.

Joining Mr. Ban at the briefing was President of the UN General Assembly, Sam Kutesa, as well as the Permanent Representatives of Peru and France, who organized the gathering.

Niels Henrik David Bohr, born on 18th November 1885 was one of the most
influential physicists of the 20th century. One of the early pioneers
of quantum physics, his work not only helped revolutionise the field he
was working in, he also helped change the way we look at the world. Read
more about our ‪#‎GreatEuropean‬ of the week on www.democraticunion.eu

As Democracy Now! continues to mark the 50th anniversary of the
assassination of Malcolm X, we are joined by his daughter, Ilyasah
Shabazz, and friend, A. Peter Bailey. Both were inside the Audubon
Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, the day Malcolm X was shot dead. Shabazz was
just two years old, while Bailey was among the last people to speak with
Malcolm X that day.

Shabazz is a community organizer, motivational speaker and author of
several books, including the young adult-themed "X: A Novel" and a
memoir, "Growing Up X." Bailey is a journalist, author and lecturer who
helped Malcolm X found the Organization of Afro-American Unity and
served as one of the pallbearers at his funeral. Bailey is the author of
several books, including "Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master
Teacher." Shabazz and Bailey discuss the circumstances surrounding
Malcolm X’s killing and share personal reflections on his life and
legacy.

TTIP is a secretly negotiated trade deal between the U.S. and the EU, and all indications are that it will replace each nation’s drug-safety, product-safety, food-safety, environmental, and worker-protection, regulations and laws, placing them into the hands of panels composed of appointees of large international corporations, no longer in the hands of publicly elected officials, no longer in the hands of elected politicians, who need to face voters periodically in order to stay in power. Basically: U.S. President Barack Obama is demanding that European nations weaken their regulations, but has been encountering stiff resistance from some, which has dragged out negotiations.

According to Mathew Holehouse in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper (here),
former UK Environment Minister Owen Paterson will this week accuse the
European Union and Greenpeace of condemning people in the developing
world to death by refusing to accept genetically modified crops.
Speaking in Pretoria, South Africa, on Tuesday, Paterson will warn that a
food revolution that could save Africa from hunger is being held back
and that the world is on the cusp of a green revolution, of the kind
that fed a billion people in the 1960s and 1970s as the world’s
population soared.